“Hey, Famisto. Yah sure this’s going to work?”

“Of course! What choice do we have... stupid brother.”

My eyes fluttered open. Was it a dream? A frustrating feeling tugged at my nerves. I was doing my best to hold onto this small conversation in my head, but the feelings and voices faded fast. Gone. I wasn’t sure if it was late afternoon or the next day when the cart’s motion stopped. A mixture of grunts and grinding noises surrounded me. I was grabbed at the shoulders and dragged out. Hands steadied me. I felt something wrap my waist. My fingers told me it was a rope.

A raspy voice ordered us to walk with the pull. It yelled at us to turn left every few paces, then grunted to take a right and not to trip. I cursed as my toe stubbed a hard edge, causing me to topple into the person in front. Everyone cursed and cried out with pain.

“Shut up, or I’ll cut yah throats!” The voice warned.

Voices went silent. We carried on straight for a long time in silence until we were given an order to stop.

My head covering was removed with a crude yank. I gasped in stale air and blinked in an unfurnished room crowded with more miserable looking children hugging their knees on the floors.

“Wait!” I called out and was answered with a curt bang!

“Hey, no name girl, er, Neven. Here.” I heard Troy’s voice amongst the crowd.

I sighed and picked my way to an empty spot next to him. It was creepy how his expression wasn’t crestfallen like many of the others.

“I see you’re okay. When they kicked you into the cart, I was worried you had damaged something.” He sighed with relief when I sat down.

“Are you sure nothing was damaged?” the girl next to me said.

It was the blond royalty I had talked with earlier in the other cell.

“Oh, hey, little miss royal is here.” I noted with blasé airs.

“What makes you think I’m royalty?” The girl gasped with tones of fear to her words.

“Come on. Yah speak like yah passing an edict with section blah blah. Like, if yah not royalty, what are yah?” I answered.

“Humph. Well, I’m nothing more than a slave like you now.” Her voice quivered with tears. She was doing her best to hold them in.

“Slave?” I frowned.

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“Yep. The soldiers weren’t shy in saying as much to each other. I guess they were trying to scare us.” Troy’s voice was barely a whisper upon confirming this fact.

It was the first time I saw an expression of fear and sadness from his face.

“Princess, Neven. I feel that once we leave this room, we won’t see each other again.” Troy gulped.

“Kalia. Not princess or little miss royalty.” The girl soberly corrected the names for her.

Troy forced a smile through his sadness. “Nice to meet you, Kalia.”

“So, I’m Neven, eh?” I pouted.

Being labeled as a no name. Well, whatever. It would do until I remembered my name.

“It suits a lowly commoner like you.” Kalia soberly commented, but I somehow detected her words to be a light joke.

“So says the disgraced princess.” I nonchalantly countered her witty sarcasm.

The cell’s door opened. Two burly soldiers in shabby brown leather armor stepped inside.

“Let’s play with the kids while we wait for orders.” One of them snickered with a malicious tone.

It made my blood boil, but what could a skinny runt of a girl like me do.

He pointed to a tiny boy no older than four summers. The boy cowered beneath the adult’s glare.

“Yah call yahself a soldier. Thug.” My voice carried across the shock and silence.

“Neven.” Troy hissed with his concerns.

The soldier stomped his way further into the room, kicking other kids out of the way.

Anger raged through my body. Adults should know better. The strong should protect the weak!

He grabbed me by the neck. I struggled to breath. Doing my best not to wrangle my body too much, so I didn’t hurt others. But the pain!

“You don’t look tough now, mouse!” He laughed as he carried me out and tossed me against a dank concrete wall.

I was relieved that what physical violence would happen to me, it wouldn’t affect the others.

“Picking on the weak make a pathetic, excuse of a worm feel stronger, does it?” My words were mere mumbles through my recovered breath. But they were loud and clear for the degenerate soldier to hear.

“I’m gonna enjoy breaking you, slave!”

I was hurled about again to land on the floor as a painful mess. My eyes swelled at the sight of raw firepower gathering before me. It took shape as a ball. Was this magic?

“You can block this, Marsilien!” A melodic chime flowed in and out of my ears.

The fireball drew near. I felt my fleeting life about to end.

“Sugar...rak bare...” Strange words were slipping out of my mouth.

A water burst countered the oncoming fireball. It stopped the rest of the strange words from escaping my mouth.

“Enough. You better not have been using magic!” An older voice bellowed at the soldiers.

“I wasn’t. She triggered something to set it off.” The soldier pointed the blame at me.

“What’s this slave doing out in the open?!”

“Well, sir, this one was causing trouble. Using magic and trying to escape when we went to check on them.” The soldier lied through a subservient whimper.

A scruffy beard soldier in a neater leather brown armor glared down at me. From his set expression, he came to a conclusion.

“Is that so. A mouse can’t be running around with magic.”

The sternness behind his gray eyes told me I was in for some serious trouble. He yanked me to my feet and connected a chain to my iron cuffs. With one pull, I was dragged into a walk.